I don't know if it speaks to my mood lately, or the gloomy winter weather (which I love), but I have been reading more heartfelt and sad novels lately. Of course, murder mysteries are always interspersed, as I generally read at least 3 books simultaneously. I was lucky enough to get an ARC of Camille Pagan's "I'm Fine and Neither Are You" from Tall Poppy Writers (if you don't know them, you should!) and it was a beautiful read. If you've never read anything by Camille, you definitely should. She has a special way of weaving a heartwarming, and sometimes heartbreaking, tale even with the grimmest of subject material. Her books touch on real life, and loss, and the issues most of us face even when we live a semi-privileged existence.
"I'm Fine and Neither Are You" by Camille Pagan - ♥♥♥♥
Penelope is a relatable character, even when you're not a mom. She's doing her absolute best to juggle all the pieces of her life, and she feels like she's doing it alone and that she's never doing a good enough job. In contrast, her best friend Jenny seems to be doing everything right. Jenny is a massive success, her online lifestyle blog making her appear as though she has the perfect life and family. When Jenny is unexpectedly found dead, secrets about her life and her demise start to rise to the surface, just as Penelope and her husband Sanjay have agreed to attempt to fix their marriage by committing to extreme, complete honesty.
Reading Camille's books is always an emotional experience, but this one will likely hit home for a lot of people as it touches on a very prevalent issue, opioid addiction and abuse. She writes about the sensitive topic with such a gentle tone, it helps to show the unseen side of this epidemic. That it's not just junkies or "lowlifes" that struggle with this, that sometimes it's the woman who seems to have it all together on the outside.
I found myself rooting for Penelope's marriage all while asking myself - could I personally handle complete and utter honesty in a relationship? Especially if my best friend had just died? Reading this was a thoughtful, introspective journey that stuck with me long after the last chapter (which required tissues for me). I reached out to Camille to let her know how much the book meant to me, and she responded with the same kindness and thoughtfulness that shines through in her novels. I highly recommend this one!
Publication date - April 1, 2019. Pre-order now at Indiebound.
Some galleys I am super excited to read!
"Tell No One" by Barbara Taylor Sissel - Release date 3/14/19
Their desperate secret. Her desperate search. A shattering truth exposed.
Caroline Corbett wants nothing to do with her father, Hoff, a man who abandoned her as a young girl and then vanished from her life almost thirty years ago. But when her beloved aunt expresses a dying wish to see him once more, Caroline, despite her failing marriage and other personal troubles, drops everything to look for him.
Harris Fenton found the father figure he'd dreamed of when he turned eight and his mother married Hoff--but his disappearance four years later left Harris with scars he carries even now that he is a father himself. While he has a beautiful family and a great job, he's hiding a shameful secret and a nightmare from his childhood.
Caroline's search for Hoff soon uncovers a host of disturbing clues and draws a threat of violence. Her mind churns with memories of her troubled history, while Harris is losing the battle against his own demons. But for both of them, dredging up the past will be dangerous, and confronting the truth could prove life shattering.
"The Last Year of the War" by Susan Meissner - Release date 3/19/19
From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and As Bright as Heaven comes a novel about a German American teenager whose life changes forever when her immigrant family is sent to an internment camp during World War II.
Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa fourteen-year-old in 1943--aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity.
The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers. Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences.
But when the Sontag family is exchanged for American prisoners behind enemy lines in Germany, Elise will face head-on the person the war desires to make of her. In that devastating crucible she must discover if she has the will to rise above prejudice and hatred and re-claim her own destiny, or disappear into the image others have cast upon her.
The Last Year of the War tells a little-known story of World War II with great resonance for our own times and challenges the very notion of who we are when who we’ve always been is called into question.
"The Last Second" by Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison - Release date 3/26/19
From New York Times bestselling authors Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison comes a riveting thriller pitting special agents Nicholas Drummond and Michaela Caine against a private French space agency that has the power to end the world as we know it.
Galactus, France’s answer to SpaceX, has just launched a communications satellite into orbit, but the payload actually harbors a frightening weapon: a nuclear-triggered electromagnetic pulse.
When the satellite is in position, Galactus’s second-in-command, Dr. Nevaeh Patel, will have the power to lay waste to the world with an EMP. A former astronaut, Patel believes she is following the directions of the Numen, aliens who saved her life when she space-walked outside the International Space Station. She is convinced that with the Holy Grail, just discovered by the owner of Galactus—eccentric treasure hunter Jean-Pierre Broussard—she can be reunited with the Numen, change the world’s destiny, and become immortal with them.
The countdown has begun when Special Agents Nicholas Drummond and Michaela Caine are thrown into the pending disaster. They must stop the EMP that would wreak havoc on communication and electronic systems on Earth, resulting in chaos and anarchy.
With their signature “nonstop action with enough realism to keep you thinking and scare the daylights out of you at the same time” (Suspense Magazine), Coulter and Ellison have created a thriller to take you on a breakneck and breathtaking journey.
"The Fragments" by Toni Jordan - Release date 9/10/19
Inga Karlson died in a fire in New York in the 1930s, leaving behind three things: a phenomenally successful first novel, the scorched fragments of a second book--and a literary mystery that has captivated generations of readers. Nearly fifty years later, Brisbane bookseller Caddie Walker is waiting in line to see a Karlson exhibition, featuring the famous fragments. A charismatic older woman quotes a phrase from the Karlson fragments that Caddie knows does not exist. Caddie is jolted from her sleepy life in 1980s Brisbane, and driven to uncover the truth about this fascinating literary mystery.
No comments:
Post a Comment